Nearly 1,500 volunteers cleaned area streams, creeks, drainage ways, rivers, and illegal-dump sites on Saturday, August 19, and removed more than 150,000 pounds of garbage, tires, and other illegally dumped items. Xstream Cleanup, which took place from 8:30 a.m. until noon, targeted 31 sites in both Scott and Rock Island counties. Volunteers removed an estimated 5,200 tires, 2,200 bags of trash, 58 pieces of furniture, 36 appliances, 25 bicycles, and 22 pallets from area waterways. In addition, site coordinators reported finding bags of clothing, a wine rack, shopping carts, automotive parts, hair and beauty supplies, toilets, various electronics, boat carpet, blankets, barge cable, safety cones, recliners, and wire. At one site near Milan, volunteers found nearly everything one would need to build and furnish a home including carpet, appliances, furniture, wood, metal, drywall, siding, and shingles. Volunteers donated more than 4,500 hours of work during the cleanup. Organizers estimate that nearly $100,000 in staff time, equipment, collection, and disposal costs were avoided with the help of volunteers and in-kind donations for the event. Cleanups took place in Bettendorf, Davenport, and LeClaire, Iowa; and East Moline, Milan, Moline, Rock Island, and Taylor Ridge, Illinois. For more information and to view photos from Xstream Cleanup, visit (http://www.xstreamcleanup.org).

St. Ambrose has become the first credentialed physical-therapy residency program in Iowa - and one of only 12 orthopedic residency programs in the country. The status was conferred by the American Physical Therapy Association. Offered in collaboration with Rock Valley Physical Therapy, the Orthopedic Physical Therapy Residency Program is a post-professional experience providing employment and clinical mentoring, upper-level academic and continuing-education classes, and teaching opportunities in a defined area of specialty practice. The residency program is the latest addition to the SAU Doctor of Physical Therapy Program and promotes standards of quality and consistency in the teaching and practice of physical therapy. For more information, contact the physical-therapy department at (563) 333-6403 or go to (http://www.sau.edu/pt).

An effort to restore a sedge meadow is underway at Nahant Marsh. The Friends of Nahant, along with landscape designer Alec Schorg (of Aunt Rhodie's Landscaping & Design Studio) and several community volunteers counted plants two Sundays in July and August. The counting is the first step in a vegetation survey in a meadow located at the northern edge of the marsh. The sedge is a rare reed-like grass with a solid stem. There are at least three species of sedge in the meadow. The sedges are competing with reed canary grass, an invasive plant that is taking over much of the four-acre meadow. The survey is designed to help decide which management techniques (mowing, burning, spraying) will work best to manage this land. The meadow restoration is part of a revised management plan at the marsh. In addition to the meadow, efforts are moving forward to extend the trail, hire a naturalist, and enclose the observation deck as a handicapped-accessible observation blind.

It's nearly college football season, which means Iowa fans can look forward to another Top 25 squad, and Illinois fans can pray for respectability and then look forward to basketball season.

But maybe avid boosters ought to consider their own critical role in the ills of college athletics. Namely, they ought to recognize that they're supporting of the exploitation of college-sports stars. (Full disclosure: As a University of Illinois graduate and fan, I'm part of the problem.)